Don Juan’s First Love Affair - Lord Byron, Don Juan (1819-24)

Don Juan is a famous, legendary character featured in many literary and musical works, such as:

• Moliere's play, Don Juan, ou Le Festin de Pierre (1665);
• Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni (1787);
• Lord Byron's, unfinished poem, Don Juan (1819-1834 - he died before finishing it); 
• George Bernard Shaw's, Man and Superman (1903). 

Traditionally, Don Juan is depicted as an arrogant and aggressive libertine who is, ultimately, damned. 
In Byron’s version, Don Juan (pronounced Joo-ann) is a naïve, passive young man. He is seduced, rather than being a seducer.

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Byron started writing Don Juan in 1818 when he was about 30 and living in Venice.  He had been exiled from England due to his numerous affairs with married women. He passed away during the 17th canto (believed to be a malaria relapse in Messolonghi, Greece during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.) 

The poem was published in serialized form, like a novel. Byron admitted he didn't know where the plot was going and this way he could gauge public reaction. 

It has 16,000 lines, is divided into 16 cantos, and is written in ottava rima, an Italian eight-line stanza form with the rhyme scheme: A-B-A-B-A-B-C-C. It is used for both comic and serious work.
Both Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) and Torquato Tasso (1544-95) wrote their great epics (Orlando Furioso and La Gerusalemme liberata) in this form. 

NOTES 

Don Juan lives in Seville with his father, Don José, and his mother, Donna Inez. His father cheated on his mother before abandoning them.
Donna Julia, the 23-year-old wife of 50-year- old Don Alfonso, fancies and lusts for the 16-year-old boy Don Juan. Despite attempting to resist his charms, Julia enters into a love affair with Juan and falls in love. 

The main themes:
Romance and Love (marriage) -  Don Juan has more than 1000 lovers and finds himself in absurd situations. At 22 he even has an affair with the much older Empress, Catherine the Great from Russia, but is returned to England when he becomes ill due to the climate.

Youth and Innocence - considered praiseworthy and celebrated

Poetry as a vehicle for glory. Byron is the poet and the narrator.

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